


the wrong way about it

by wiitts



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DC Extended Universe
Genre: Angst, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Gen, Guilt, Old Friends, Past Character Death, Slight Ableism, Strained Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 07:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23347888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiitts/pseuds/wiitts
Summary: Here are the facts:One, there is a new Batgirl in town.Two, Barbara Gordon and Bruce Wayne have not spoken in half a decade.And three, Jason Todd is the ghost that haunts every room.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	the wrong way about it

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on introducing Cassandra Cain into the DCEU (ignoring BoP) ft. lots of angst and the righteous, justified fury of one Barbara Gordon.
> 
> This may or may not get reworked and reincorporated into a larger fic, but I finished writing it and I wanted to post something because I haven't in a hot minute.

Barbara knows he’s in the room before she even flicks the lights on. She half considers not acknowledging him - rolling past the main room that serves as her work station and turning in early. It would serve him right - how many times has he ignored her calls over the last five years? - the other part of her is curious as to what Bruce wants.

So Barbara hits the switch, crosses her arms over her chest and glares up at him with one brow cocked in a silent question.

The Batsuit is different than it had been the last time Barbara had been this close to it: less bulky around the joints, more grey-black than blue-black, the bat emblem more subtle - lines etched into the kevlar rather than raised like a badge of honor. Barbara tries not to stare at it with the hunger she can feel gnawing at that dark place in her that still longs for the life on the streets - the wind in her hair and the burn of well-used muscles, the scent of metal and leather and sweat of being in the suit. 

She isn’t bitter about it, now. She’s accepted it, and more than that she knows that she’s done more good from her chair than she ever had fighting on the front line. But thinking about it abstractly bathed in the glow of a computer screen and having it right in front of her, close enough to touch, are two very different beasts.

Barbara meets the blank gaze of Batman’s cowl. He hadn’t even bothered to take it off, like she was a criminal he was trying to intimidate and not someone who had been family, once upon a time. Before everything had gone to shit.

The first thing out of Bruce’s mouth is, “Who is she.” Not a question, but a demand.

“It took you long enough,” Barbara says, just to see that muscle in his jaw twitch. 

Barbara had been expecting this. She just hadn’t been expecting it to take two years and the front page of every newspaper this side of Jersey being plastered with the headline _Batgirl: Back After Seven Years?_ above a blurred photo. 

Either Bruce was losing his edge or - more likely - Cass was just that good.

“Who,” Bruce grits out, harsh as a snarling animal. “Is. She.”

Barbara lifts her chin, squares her shoulders. “Batgirl.”

She does not jump when Bruce slams his fist into the wall beside him. Her walls are concrete, which is why tomorrow she’ll find a fist-sized dent rather than a gaping hole. He’s lucky she doesn’t have any neighbours.

“Barbara,” he growls.

The low simmering rage she’s felt building since that first alarm had gone off explodes in her.

“Is this what it takes?” she spits back. “For you to come see me after - after _years_? Someone running around Gotham in a mask without your permission? Cleaning up all the messes that you don’t have time for?”

Barbara has a decade’s worth of resentment that she could throw at him - everything from the criminals branded with _his_ symbol to the corruption that was eating away at Wayne Enterprises from the inside out. She could be even crueler than that, too - could ask him when the last time he’d actually spoken to Dick was, could remind him of the fact that he had not even waited for Dick before burying Jason. On her second to worst days, she hates Bruce. On her worst, she hates herself for still caring about him.

Barbara closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath. Blood is rushing in her ears; her pulse is hammering so hard that she knows he can see it in her throat. It’s only when Barbara is sure that she won’t scream at him to get the fuck out of her house does she open her eyes.

“Someone needs to take care of Gotham, Bruce,” she tells him. She is not calm, not exactly, but her voice does not waver. “You think I didn’t see everything that went on last year? That I live under a rock? The world is changing, but Gotham isn’t. Gotham is still just as rotten as it’s always been. Maybe the world needs the Justice League now - and the Justice League needs _you_ \- but Gotham needs someone too.”

For a long time Bruce says nothing. He knows she’s right, and she knows that it infuriates him.

“She has no right to wear that symbol.”

“That,” Barbara growls, “is _not_ your call to make.”

Batgirl belonged to her, in the same way that Robin had belonged to Dick and then Jason when Dick had passed it down. But then Barbara had gotten her spine blown out and Jason - Jason had -

It had seemed like both legacies would end there: in a too small coffin and a box shoved at the back of Barbara’s closet. But then Cass had come along, and a new kind of hope had bloomed in Barbara’s chest. 

Bruce says, “I can’t let anyone else risk their lives fighting in my war.”

A chill settles over the room at that.

Barbara can no longer make herself look at him. Her eyes slide away from him to land on the scuffed floor.

They had all mourned Jason. They had all loved him, and maybe Barbara didn’t understand what it was like to lose him in the way that Bruce had, but she had shared some part of that grief. Bruce had done nothing but shut her out. He had shut all of them out - her and Dick and Alfred.

Even now, Barbara could not imagine the sort of guilt Bruce felt looking at her. Her and her chair were a physical reminder to Bruce of the inevitable end that waited for those who fought in his war. Maybe that was why he had stayed away for so long.

It made her furious. All Bruce could see when he looked at her was the person who _used_ to be Batgirl, and not the person she had molded herself into out of blood and sweat and sheer determination. Dick had the same problem, sometimes, but week after week he still picked up the phone, still left a comm channel open and was not afraid to ask her for intel when he needed it.

There were times she missed it, but she did not for a second regret any of the work Oracle had done. Bruce’s guilt - and more than that, his _pity_ \- was just another reason for Barbara to hate him.

But.

“She’s good.” Barbara does not say _perfect_ , even though she thinks it. “She’s better than you, Bruce. How do you think she avoided you for so long?”

She wouldn’t lie about something like this, and Bruce knows it.

Barbara thinks the conversation will end there. That Bruce will slink away, defeated and angry, start monitoring the Clocktower even more intently than he already had been.

But then, Bruce asks, “How is Dick?” 

“How would I know?” Barbara snaps, harsher than she had intended. She still feels a bitter satisfaction at his small, guilty flinch.

She knew how Dick was, of course, and she had no doubt that Bruce knew too. The difference between them was that while Bruce snuck down to Bludhaven once a month to spy on him from across the BPD precinct, Barbara picked up the phone once a week to call him.

She would tell him something like, _you should call him_ , if Bruce had done anything to deserve it. If Bruce didn’t damn well know that was all he had to do if he wanted to know how Dick was doing.

Barbara sighs, lifting her glasses to rub tiredly at her eyes. “Are we done here?”

“You look… well,” he says, as if this is the beginning of the conversation.

Barbara rolls her eyes. “You don’t,” she says because it’s true. He’s in the suit, but Barbara knows all his tells as well as she knows her own: the tired slump he’s trying to hide, the raw, pink line on his jaw where he must have cut himself shaving that morning. He’s working himself to the bone, but then again, when had she known him not to.

“Take care of yourself,” he tells her.

Barbara sighs again. “Yeah. You too, Bruce.” She could have said something like, _try not to get yourself killed_ , but she was tired of being cruel to him. This entire conversation has drained her in ways she’d only known long, excruciating therapy sessions to do.

Bruce nods at her, once, and slips out the window he must have come through.

Barbara waits a beat. Then another.

“You can come out,” she says into the dark.

Cass steps out of the shadow.

She’s wearing civvies, which is surprising considering she’d probably live in her Batgirl suit if Barbara would let her. Cass looks tense, more so than usual, with her shoulder held taught and fingers curled in tight towards her palms. She stares at the window Bruce had just exited out of, as though she’s expected him to still be there, before she turns her gaze to Barbara.

“You could have come out, you know,” Barbara tells her. “I know you’ve been wanting to meet him, and it’s going to happen sooner or later.”

Cass shakes her head. She twitches slightly, hands flexing. “He was. Angry.”

“He’s always angry, Cass.”

She shakes her head again. “Didn’t want to… to make it worse.”

“Are you going out tonight?” Barbara asks.

“No,” Cass answers. “He will be… looking. And you need me more. Tonight.”

Barbara smiles at her. “You’re sweet,” she says, and rolls over to where Cass is. She reaches up and ruffles Cass’ hair. Cass smiles back, some of the tension easing out of her.

“Come on,” Barbara continues, turning to head towards the kitchen. “Let’s get some dinner.”


End file.
